News

Volunteers from water company Severn Trent have spent the last year helping clean up the region’s rivers, improve the company’s visitor sites, and helped out some of Britain’s most popular charities.

Over the past 12 months, employees have taken advantage of the company’s policy of offering staff two paid days a year to volunteer in the communities in which they live and work.

Leanne Town, community volunteering officer, who runs the scheme says, “We’ve had another fantastic year of the Community Champions, and we’re so proud of our people getting behind great initiatives that make big changes in the local community.

“Over the year we’ve planted over 3,000 trees, cleaned over 14 kilometres of river, collected over hundreds and hundreds of bags of rubbish, including items like trolley’s, computers and motorbikes from the river, helping to make a real difference to the community and environment that we live and work in. We’ve also helped Comic Relief and Children in Need by offering up our call centres to take donations, which is always popular.”

Severn Trent works closely with partners that includes Waterside Care, Canal and Rivers Trust and Warwickshire Wildlife Trust on projects designed to make environmental improvements in its region, such as cleaning rivers and planting trees.

It also supports its charity partnerships, WaterAid, Comic Relief and Children in Need by organising fundraising events throughout the year, as well as supporting its national call centres, helping to raise record breaking amounts of money for charity.

“It’s clear our people have a passion for volunteering, nearly 300 of our employees gave up time to take donations for Children In Need and Comic Relief, and over a third of our entire work force got behind the Community Champion programme in some way over the past year,” said Leanne.

Going into its third year, Severn Trent is encouraging more of its employees to sign up the scheme to help make a positive difference to local communities and the environment.

For more information about The Community Champions, visit: stwater.co.uk/about-us/communities-and-charities/community-champions/